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The physical sensation of the pale is difficult to describe: cold but only as the absence of heat, dark but only as the absence of light, foggy but only as the absence of clarity. The ground underneath does not feel like land; if anything, it seems more like the notion of dirt, somehow abstracted from complex thought and consolidated into a material form underneath the hundreds of pairs of boots that march ahead, inside a permanent, interstitial simulacrum.
At first, there were trees. Long expanses of what could have been pine, spruce or eucalyptus, or maybe all of them at once. Then, eventually, they became more sparse — harder to parse where the next thing-like-a-tree might be coming up ahead.
Ignus takes a breath in sync with his steps, feeling the odd, stale air enter his lungs. There's no relief associated with the action.
"— and, of course, I know it must weigh upon you the most, my friend," the voice next to him says. Despite how long they've spent together, Ignus thinks there's something strange in the timbre of his voice, and the way it has completely stopped echoing.
Ignus grunts, saying nothing. Ion Radionov scowls.
Then, slowly, he puts a gentle hand on Ignus's shoulder. Ignus feels the grip tighten, and stops walking briefly. Ion's dark gaze is intense, steady — and for a moment, Ignus fears what he might be seeing.
"I understand, my friend," Ion says, finally. "I will be here as long as I can. For you."
Ignus swallows, and the inside of his mouth tastes like ashes.
Every meeting was larger than the last, and this one was no exception: all around Ignus, people were pulling up chairs and stools, or resigning themselves to standing around for the full length of what would probably be an hours-long meeting to prepare for the days ahead. There was to be a general strike across multiple sectors of the city, and everyone was preparing for what was likely to come; self-defense was the word of the day, but so were community kitchens.
When finally everything seemed to settle down, perfectly and expectedly behind schedule, the president of the Multisectorial Worker's Coordination got on stage, and Ignus felt everything shifting into place for tomorrow: who would be stationed where, what hot spots could they expect reactionary violence from; everything seemed to be accounted for.
And then one sharp, determined hand rose into the air.
"Comrades," said the man with a grave voice standing up. Every set of eyes in the room gravitated to him, and Ignus was no exception. "Preparations for tomorrow and the coming weeks seem to be set. I applaud all of our coordinating efforts across different sectors for this, truly impressive feat of articulating all that needs to be done."
But—
"But, it is imperative that we do not leave the hard work of understanding the class enemy behind. How does his economy work? Where do his riches come from? We cannot let these questions slip past us."
All of the light in the dark room seemed to pool around the speaker's body, clinging to his shoulder blades and jawline as Ignus felt himself cling to his words.
"The intellectual work cannot be separated from our revolutionary praxis. Let us no longer speak of utopias: the world we want is possible, and within reach, if only we give ourselves the necessary task of thinking and doing as one singular action." Ignus felt the steady beat of his heart accelerate with the man's diction. "We must construct the revolutionary program for the workers, not just of Graad, but of the entire world — let this movement erode the very essence of the pale with its force, and reach every isola!"
Ignus swallowed. Yes, he thought. This was the kind of leadership they would all need.
"Is she okay?" One voice, then another and another ask.
The soldier screams, the pain in her leg rendering her unable to do much else. The endless fog of the pale seems to concentrate strangely around her.
"What happened?"
The medic kneeling above the soldier has blood on her hands, and a complicated look in her eyes. She's silent for a moment, before getting gauze from her bag.
"We're not sure," she says, after she begins to very carefully wrap the gauze around the soldier's wounded calf. "The wound looks oddly fresh, but we've been here… days… or something like days… and she says nothing happened to her on the retreat, nor has she fallen or had any issues while we've been here."
The statement seems to chill the air around the mass of marching soldiers, despite the absence of anything like a temperature.
Another voice pipes up, familiar to some and approaching with a silhouette trailing behind known to most. "Is there, ah, anything we can do for her?"
The medic frowns, contorts her mouth briefly before answering. "Not much to be done right now, Radionov. We can monitor the wound, and when we make it out of this nightmare, if there are any supplies we can treat her, but for now the best I can do is put her in a splint. She'll need help walking."
Ignus straightens up behind Ion. Something cold crosses his eyes for a flash; just long enough for the medic to feel the nerves in her body scream for a moment.
Then, as quick as it came, it's gone.
"Help her," Ignus says, and walks away without another word.
It was oddly warm in the palace, the night before everything changed.
Ignus remembers wearing only a light, indoor jacket in Kras's room, as they pored over documents under the candlelight, burning the hour of midnight like the wax, dripping hot and slow. Wordlessly, Kras handed him an intelligence report on suspicious activity in southern Graad, and Ignus looked at the shape of his fingers curled on paper, thick and steady with nails hardened through years of manual labor.
As Ignus sifted through the information — primarily sightings of strange movements and people in the countryside, though it reminded him of similar reports in the capital days ago — he felt something strange about Kras's presence. Had he shifted closer? Ignus could feel warm breath ghosting on the fine hairs along his skin. But when he turned to look at his friend, he found him exactly where he had been before.
Kras looked back up at him, dark eyes asking if Ignus had seen anything to worry about in the report and—
and—
something was strange.
Something is wrong.
Ignus feels panic spread through his nervous system, spreading out from his bone marrow and penetrating every single one of his cells. He knows something— something— something—
Kras put a hand on his arm, slow and deliberate, tightly gripping his skin as if to ground him completely. And it worked: Ignus felt himself come back down into his body, calming down in an instant. Kras's hand was so warm on him; [don't] his heat dissipated throughout Ignus's body, and Ignus felt like he could breathe again.
A slight nod of Kras's chin asked him if he was alright, the hand on his arm tugging him closer. Ignus answered with a shrug, but came easily into the space left by the body calling to him. The [leave] candlelight flickered next to them, leaving them in darkness for a second. Neither of them noticed: in the darkness they [him] only felt each others' skin as their own form of communication.
They spoke the language of lips and skin in a slow daze, falling back onto the bed with only soft sighs and pants and grunts for words, [alone] punctuated with caresses and gentle touches and the [tomorrow] odd feeling of copper in Ignus's mouth.
His lips fell open, tongue dancing along Kras's, sighing in pleasure before he really notices the smell of rot that permeates the room.
Ignus screams as Kras bleeds out under him, a bullet wound ugly and pulsating on his neck— there's red all over the sheets, and the candle has flickered out entirely.
When Ignus opens his eyes, the pale still surrounds him on the march to Samara.
"I find the trees to be the most interesting," Ion says, as they walk along the strange, echo-less place. Ignus hears him from far away, as though they are not standing next to each other. "Most of them seem to be of some distinct type, but if you look closer they'll present characteristics of multiple different species. The fruit is particularly fascinating, when they have any."
Ignus thinks about splitting open a lemon, and finding it filled with berries.
"It's true," he says, after a moment, "they seem almost… affected by our own expectations and perceptions, somehow."
There's the seed of an idea, planted somewhere inside him now. What if the pale responds to consciousness? What if not only the pale does?
Ion nods. "It is most curious, yes. It makes me wonder what would happen if one were to remain—"
A mumbling voice a few meters ahead stops them dead in their tracks. It somehow echos along the trees, deep and familiar but utterly unidentifiable. No one else among the marching crowd seems to react to it.
"Do you hear that?" Ion says, after a moment.
The murmuring crystallizes into words; the familiarity into the timber of a specific voice, known to both of them. Ignus holds his breath.
"My friend," Kras said, with a belly laugh, "you are absolutely brilliant. This analysis! This could change the tide."
"Is that… Kras?" Ion asks, voice soft and eyes wide.
Ignus nods, hand gripping an odd mixture between a pine and a eucalyptus.
"I would be nothing without you, my dear friend, and could very well say the same!" Ignus said, clasping his beer in one hand and Kras's forearm in the other. He slammed down the rest of his drink, and slid his hand down to grasp Kras's over the table. The tavern was noisy, but somehow he was able to focus on Kras's voice, singularly above all others.
"Do you see him?" Ion asks, voice barely even a whisper.
"Nonsense, nonsense. You were a powerful leader in the teacher's union far before I came along. But, my friend, I am so very glad to find you. For all workers, of course, but," Kras hesitated for a moment. His warm eyes flickered over their clasped hands, and he seemed to make a decision, "far more selfishly, for myself."
Ignus felt his body light up from the inside. Suddenly, he could hear no other voices, feel no other sources of heat besides where their bodies came together. It took him a moment of looking away to collect himself.
"My friend, if you are selfish, then so am I," he said, voice lower than his earlier, boisterous claims. "I am just as glad to have you in my life, if not more so."
Kras smiled at him.
After a moment, the voice dies down among the trees, replaced by the steady sounds of boots hitting the dirt. Ignus shudders, his body feeling jolted by the vivid memory. He takes a moment to collect himself. After a couple of deep breaths, Ignus continues marching alone, as he has been.
Ignus has no idea how long it has been since he felt real air in his lungs, but he recognizes it as soon as he feels it. The fog clears ahead of them as the empty chill becomes a lazy heat and the grey overcast becomes a clear blue sky with scant few clouds. Whenever and wherever they have emerged, it seems to be the middle of a bright and sunny day. Behind him, Ignus hears a few soldiers begin to cry as they, too, feel the first few breaths of air entering their bodies. Ahead, a soldier who was being carried by her friends after being wounded decides to set her feet down on the ground, and though she cannot take more than a few steps on her own, she seems relieved by the feeling of the ground under her feet.
The world we want is possible.
There's a a voice inside his head. It's low and rough but it's warm and familiar, too.
The revolution is still alive, Kras whispers to him in the wind.
But, Ignus thinks, we have to do everything to defend it. He remembers the blood on the floor. For you. He looks around at the relief that surrounds him, and the sun on the horizon. For all of us.
There's a spruce field up ahead. The trees look real, and sharp. The future must be defended, he decides.
"The enemy will try to follow us," he says later that evening, once everyone has made camp. The flames of the fires lick up into the night sky. "In order to create the future we want, we must defend our past."
Let us not speak of a utopia.
"In our situation, drastic steps are necessary to advance the revolution."
The future is within reach.
"The prisoners will be executed. Impale them on the trees as warning to any who might follow."
A shrike flies overhead. Kras Mazov bleeds to death in Mirova.
"Our enemies will know that we will defend the revolution, at any cost."